The hopes of black America ride on his shoulders. But the outcome's way up in the air.

I am a black man born in 1954, the year of Brown v. Board of Education. Fleeing the abuses of Jim Crow, my parents moved from South Carolina to Washington, D.C., later that decade. Tales of racial oppression and racial resistance were staples of conversation in our household. My father often spoke of watching Thurgood Marshall argue the case ( Rice v. Elmore) that invalidated the rule permitting only whites to vote in South Carolina's Democratic primary. Memories of that story played a large part in producing the tears I shed on the evening Barack Obama won this year's primary in the Palmetto State.

Related memories -- the most haunting being our visit to a D.C. funeral home to pay last respects to Medgar Evers, the courageous head of the Mississipppi branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People who was murdered by a segregationist -- helped reduce me to tears, again, on the night the senator from Illinois accepted his party's nomination as its candidate for president.

Never before have my emotions been so exercised by a political campaign. For one thing, never before has a candidate so fully challenged the many inhibitions that have prevented people of all races, including African Americans, from seriously envisioning presidential power in the hands of someone other than a white American. With intelligence, verve and elegance, Obama has opened the public mind to the idea of a black president and made that idea broadly attractive.

I am white and I have no problem with a black person being President....just NOBAMA!!!!! The reason I am not voting for Obama is not because he is black, rather it is because he supports abortion-on-demand, voted for live-birth abortion, is inexperienced, and is flat-out socialist!

Same here. I actually voted for Alan Keyes as a protest vote in the Texas primaries.

McCain-Palin08!!!!

102
posted on 09/15/2008 8:29:58 AM PDT
by Arrowhead1952
(Sarah Palin is NOT worried about anything being above her pay grade!)

The author says he is an enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Obama because Obama is of the author's own race, and breaks a racial barrier. How does the author feel about Condeleeze Rice? Unsaid. How does the author feel about Justice Thomas? Unsaid. The author does celebrate and highly regard Thurgood Marshall.

Yet Mr. Thomas walked through a fire oven to get onto the court, Thurgood Marshall's entry onto the court was a cakewalk by comparison, yet no mention of Thomas.

This is nothing but political advocacy and propaganda by means of race. The accusation is that Obama, if he loses, well have lost in large part due to racist white voters, whereas black voters are called and encouraged to vote and enthusiastically support Obama, like the author, for reasons of a different side of racism -- racial affinity.

Yet the logical conclusion of the author's line of argument is that author doesn't support Obama because of his race, but rather because of his politics. Yet the author casts his argument as strictly racial confrontation. And that -- confrontation, divisiveness -- is the politics. It is to the eternal slavery of victimhood that the Democratic party aligns its politics, and so too the author.

You should see this whacko article from Whitey-hating white person/Uber-liberal Tim Wise!

“For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you’ll “kick their fuckin’ ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office—since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s—while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you’re black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do—like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor—and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college—you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a “second look.”

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a “light” burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

As I've mentioned, there have already been threads on the subject you mention right here on FR, although I can't locate them now.

Tell you what -- you start the thread and then ping me, and I'll then flag my RKBA list for comments. I'm sure some folks in that group would be able to provide links, as well as plenty of timely advice.

We really need a thread on choosing a SHTF gun for self protection, for those of us who need to purchase in the next 45 days

A lot will depend on where you live (city apartment, suburban house, out in the country), and how much training you think you can squeeze in on short notice (buying a gun without investing the time to become proficient with it, which at a minimum involves a full day under a competent instructor, is a BAD IDEA).

112
posted on 09/15/2008 9:26:33 AM PDT
by PapaBear3625
("In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell)

"Black America" (and by that, I mean the 52% of blacks who have decided to be "African-Americans" rather than being Americans) will be forever bitter and disappointed until the day that it's hopes ride on it's own shoulders. No charismatic liar is going to wash away the self-applied stigma carried by a group that lives in the past, blames The Man for every problem they continue to accept in their own communities, and that thinks Rap Music is cool.

Every February I am educated about dozens of impressive blacks of the past who, rightfully so, earned my respect by advancing science, healing the the sick, and creating Jazz, Rock, Swing, R&B and Gospel. And then I look around today, and see thugs making millions calling women "hoes" and getting shot because after becoming millionaires, they continue to hang with the same loosers and act like petty criminals.

A big chunk of black society has wonderfully struggled, learned, achieved, and succeeded, and gone on to be Americans. Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice, Bill Cosby, and others should be heroes to black youth, if the world made sense. Instead, the failed part of black culture teaches them that these impressive people are actually "too white" (which implies that somehow, a significant group of their culture seems to think achievement is "not a black thing", which darn near makes me weep.)

Black America, however you define it, has got to adopt a higher standard for itself, and expect more of itself. What would impress me was if I heard the REVERAND Jackson and other black preachers saying, "Drugs will make you broke, steal from your family, and kill you. The unwed mother is not to be abandoned, but the behavior is not to be accepted. Black children need a strong father, and if you can't find a man who will behave responsibly and marry you first, it is better if you didn't have sex. Blaming someone else because you dropped out of high school is stupid. Get a job and work hard at it until you succeed; don't complain that the jobs that will hire you don't pay enough while you wait for a check from the government.

There have been endless brave, smart, and kind black people in the past who have earned my respect. And our "Great Society" handout, the multi-billion dollar Reparations program we have flushed down the drain-hole of history has done what generations of bigots, Nazi's and Klansmen could never do...destroyed the black family. As a white person, I apologize for all the money we spent trying to make ourselves feel better about slavery; we should have set it up so that we expected something back in exchange for all the checks. And I am sorry that most white people are scared to admit this, and are willing to go right on writing the checks, when we should be expecting some kind of thanks instead of Reverend Wright's blustery anti-Christian hatred.

If you teach a man to fish, he will go get a job as a fisherman and feed his family for life. If you give a man a fish, he will endlessly complain that it isn't fresh enough, is the wrong kind, wasn't cooked the way he likes it...and anyway, yours is bigger!

Both Mossberg and Bennelli have excellent reputations. If price is an issue for you, you are better off getting the Mossberg and using the money you save to get lots of practice ammo and spend a weekend at a range getting comfortable with it.

By "getting comfortable" I mean putting a couple of hundred rounds through it under the supervision of somebody competent, over a period of a couple of days, and becoming confident that you can handle the recoil, that the gun cycles reliably, and that you can hit the target reliably with it.

If you have a wife/girlfriend, before buying you might take a look at getting a 20-gauge, which has much less recoil, unless she's a big girl who can become comfortable with a 12-gauge.

Black conservatives — many of them in the military or retired from it — are an untapped GOP resource. Oddly, for lack of imagination, instead of activating Black military conservatives, the GOP usually wastes its time and effort by trying to recruit unreliable Black “leaders” to endorse GOP candidates. Even when such an endorsement is obtained, it usually proves worthless as a vote getter because it is so transparently opportunistic.

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